Camping - Naivasha

“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” - Walt Whitman

In March we ventured out camping. Sleeping in the woods (or in a campground) is by no means new to us but we had yet to attempt such a thing in Kenya. I camped on a few occasions in Tanzania but not with my own equipment so it's been more of a challenge to include it among my regular activities. For obvious reasons, camping is not a big draw for Africans. As one Tanzanian woman told me, "Many of my country work their whole lives to escape a life that resembles something like what you call camping." Fair enough. There's a deeper vein that I could probe there, with some assistance from Walt Whitman, but I'll refrain from doing so right now.

We’ve discussed it on numerous occasions and sort of assumed that the only cost effective way to obtain gear was to schlep it in on one of our trips to the US. In the end it turned out to be a combination of good friends that were planning a weekend of camping and the relatively recent opening of a sporting goods store with pretty good equipment and not very expensive. It all came together and we just decided to make it happen.

There are few things I like to do more than be out in the woods. I prefer to be in the mountains but I’ll take whatever woods I can get. Given that Priya likes to camp, I suppose that it’s a bit surprising that we didn’t prioritize it sooner. Part of it is that in Burundi, it’s less of a thing. Some expats do it but it’s not as common. The other part of it was that almost the entire time that we were there we had infants/toddlers. That’s certainly not a show stopper but it can complicate things. And it’s less of a situation where you’re investing in the kids since they would have no, or little, memory of the experience.

So now we’ve crossed that threshold. The girls will now remember things. We’re cognizant that what we do gets stored in a bank just like the experiences that each of us acquired over the years. I very much enjoyed it growing up: camping, hiking, sitting by the campfire, roasting s’mores, backpacking, getting dirty, etc. Annual camping trips to the US, even with the incorporation of backpacking last year, isn’t enough. We needed to step up our game, and also start bonding more with our family’s adopted country.

Another thing I’ve neglected to do since we’ve been in Kenya is read about the place. Everywhere I’ve moved, I’ve invested a considerable amount of time buying books and learning about the history, politics and culture. When we moved here, I confess that most of that time has been spent on learning about Somalia: a) because it’s quite fascinating and b) because my job depends on it. I assumed over time, however, that I would eventually pivot towards learning more about Kenya. But it hasn’t really happened. I likely know more than a lot of people but it’s a far cry from what I would have anticipated.

So last month we made arrangements with two other families to meet up at a campground on Lake Naivasha. I’d been to the lake a few times, even stayed at a hotel there for a week for work meetings, but never camping. It's anywhere between two to three hours from Nairobi depending on what part of the lake you are going to. This time it was about a two and a half hour drive, not entirely pleasant due to road construction, aggressive and/or slow drivers, etc. but we made it in one piece.

Priya navigated us to the campground, sort of on the other side of the lake from where I’d been before. It’s a beautiful setting with lots of trees. Though different parts of the lakeside vary in the wildlife that is prevalent, the campground area was mostly limited to vervet or colobus monkeys (huge fan of the latter), and hippos. The hippos are rather an important feature of the campground. They sit out in the water with their eyes poking out during the day and then emerge around sundown to munch on the foliage. Though they allegedly kill more humans in Africa than any other mammal, they were not a threat. The campground has set up an electric fence (in fact it’s just a wire) that seems to serve as a deterrent to prevent them coming further inland than just the twenty or so meters they’ve been allotted along the shore.

We were the first to arrive. We wanted to make sure that we were there in plenty of time before sundown to do the inaugural constructing of the tent. Generally speaking it was pretty intuitive. One thing that didn’t quite go as planned was the sleeping layout. We bought these cots rather than opting for pads or an inflatable mattress. I’ve never used cots for camping but I have to say, the old school technology is pretty sweet for car camping. And it keeps you off the ground in situations where there are tiny critters roaming about or dampness from rain. It's something we may need to adopt when camping in the States.

But when we went to set them up in the tent, we discovered that the listed width of the tent and the listed width of the cots (x 4) didn’t quite measure up as advertised. The tent just wasn’t as wide as we thought and we ended up needing to improvise. Fortunately the tent had an enclosed “porch” area that easily fit the fourth cot. As such we were able to put me there with the ladies on the inside. It’s not ideal but it worked.

We spent just two nights but it was great. The large posse of kids had a fantastic time and so did the parents. We did all the normal things one does when camping (by a lake). We cooked our own food, boated, chased away greedy monkeys, etc. On the second night we cheated and ate at a restaurant at the campground (particularly good, by the way). One side event that we did was drive to nearby Hell’s Gate. But that deserves its own blog entry.